Vendor claim & update policy
Effective 2026-09-14. Vendors are welcome on BestAIToolix — as sources of verifiable facts, never as owners of our conclusions (P-05).
Claiming a listing
- Create or join a vendor organization in the vendor portal.
- Submit a claim for the tool and prove the vendor–tool relationship (methods below).
- An editor reviews the proof and approves or rejects with a recorded reason.
- Approved claims mark the listing “verified owner” and unlock scoped edit permissions.
Verification methods, in preference order
- Official-domain email. An email address on a domain already associated with the vendor organization.
- DNS TXT record. A one-time token published in the domain's DNS — the strongest self-service proof of domain control.
- Website token. A token file or meta tag on the official product website.
- Manual evidence + admin review. Fallback for cases where none of the above is possible; an editor verifies the evidence.
Every claim records its method, proof metadata, verifier, timestamps, and decision reason. Tokens expire; verification can be re-required.
What a verified vendor can change
| Field | Publication path |
|---|---|
| Vendor website, canonical links | Auto-published after the domain association is verified. |
| Logo and screenshots | Auto-published after media validation and moderation checks. |
| Product description, pricing claims, compliance claims | Held for editorial verification with evidence before publication. |
| Editorial pros/cons, factor scores, rankings, reviews | Vendor cannot set these. A correction may be proposed; editors decide. |
Vendor edits never silently overwrite independently verified values — they create change proposals that are either auto-published (low-risk owner facts) or queued for editorial review, each with evidence and an audit trail.
Disputes
Vendors can dispute factual values, stale evidence, ownership decisions, category assignment, and methodology-application errors through the portal. Vendors cannot demand a preferred rank, deletion of legitimate negative reviews, unpublished competitor evidence, or weight changes for commercial reasons (§48.3). Ranking methodology itself is governed by the methodology policy.